


Noble Intentions

by FaintlyMacabre



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Implied Femslash, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 08:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17700581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/pseuds/FaintlyMacabre
Summary: "I could leave," I thought. "She clearly doesn't want my help; I have other things to think about. I could just call it a night." But I couldn't, not really.





	Noble Intentions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrsulaKohl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/gifts).



The first time I met Zell, I thought, _Oh gods, you poor fucker._

She was sitting— well, slumping— at a table in the Mule, dark blonde hair almost entirely obscuring her face. Her table was littered with mostly empty glasses and the bench was littered with mostly leering onlookers. She raised a glass almost to her mouth, but it sloshed, spilling onto the man next to her, who jumped up and swore. I recognized him as his face came into the light: Martus. Not the ideal drinking companion for a young woman, especially one who was in as many of her cups as this one was. His sour mood seemed to evaporate as he looked down at her. He smiled and ran a hand through her hair, and although the gesture didn't seem particularly violent or forceful, it set alarm bells ringing in my head. In her head too, judging by the look of panic on her face. Just like that, this had turned from a pathetic scene to a situation to be defused. I wove my way toward the table, hoping I could muster up a feeling of diplomacy.

"Marty!" I greeted him. "Who's your friend?"

"Who? Oh, this," he said, his fingers still in her hair. "This is, uh... this is... she doesn't talk much."

"Yeah, looks like she drank away those fine motor skills a while back." Now that her face wasn't completely hidden, I could see gray eyes and strong features, but they didn't look inhabited.

"You know what the difference between her and you is?" Martus said.

 _I know how to drop you?_ I took a breath. _Defuse the situation._ "I'm sure you'll tell me."

" _She's_ having a great time."

"Really? Because that look on her face definitely means she's about to bring all that drink back up." It was true: she'd gone all white and green, and she was staring wide-eyed through the table in front of her. Martus pulled his hand back.

"I'm going to get her outside," I said.

"Yeah, good idea," said Martus, sounding far away.

"All right, I don't know if you can hear me, but we're going to get you some air, so just walk with me." I pulled her arm over my shoulders and tried to straighten up. She was a lot taller than I'd initially thought and, inconveniently, a lot taller than me. But I'd started this and I didn't trust anyone else.

I half-carried, half-dragged her through the crowd until she tripped over the threshold, fell through the door and out of my grasp, and vomited on the hard-packed dirt. Knocked off balance, I turned my momentum into a clumsy roll and ended up a few feet away.

"How are you doing?" I called, not expecting much of an answer.

"Hair," she rasped.

It took me a second. "Oh, right," I said, and went back to hold her hair. Shoulder length, not long enough to get much in it. Still, though, what are friends for? Or, strangers thrown together in mundane circumstances and, you know, showing solidarity.

"Doesn't look so good now, huh, Arliss?" Martus was standing over us in the doorway, as welcome as he usually is. "Who knew, bitch can't hold her liquor."

And that was the last thing he said before the woman in front of me stopped mid-heave and moved a foot back to sweep his legs. He went down hard; with any luck, when he came to, he wouldn't remember me laughing at him. I was about to congratulate her on such a skillful move when she heaved and vomited again. I waited until all I heard from her was labored breathing and offered a hand. She looked up at me, but didn't take it, just wiped her mouth and shakily pushed herself off the ground.

"Thanks," she said in that same raspy voice as before, and started to walk past the Mule toward the tree line. There was nothing that way, only woods, and they went on for miles. I thought she must be still disoriented, maybe lost.

"Hey," I said, "you were just real sick. Shouldn't someone see you home?"

"Home?" she said. "I'll let you know when I find one." _Oh good, dramatics_. I jogged to catch up with her.

"Hey," I said again. She didn't stop. "Do you even know where you're going?" I almost put a hand on her arm, but then I remembered Martus and thought better of it. "You're going to get your ass killed!"

She stopped. I thought I was getting through to her. Then she laughed. Laughed like she'd heard some fantastic joke and couldn't stop, laughed until she couldn't stand anymore, but when she hit the ground, she started crying.

 _I could leave_ , I thought. _She clearly doesn't want my help and she's no longer walking straight into the woods; I have other things to think about. I could just call it a night._ But I couldn't, not really. Who knew how long Martus would be out and how vindictive he'd feel when he came to? And as for the other patrons of the Mule... Martus probably wasn't the worst of them, just the worst I knew.

I sat down next to her. We didn't speak. Eventually her sobs quieted and lessened, and then she sniffled and then nothing. I thought maybe she'd passed out, so I risked a glance at her. She wasn't asleep, but she did look very, very sober.

"I might as well be dead," she said. I didn't know how to respond to that. "I'm fucked. It doesn't matter where I go, because they'll find me, and they'll kill me, and that'll be it."

"Who?"

"The royal family." I was pretty sure she was joking, and then I was pretty sure she was not joking. "Well, some of them anyway. No, wait, all of them. No room in the guard for traitors."

"What... _exactly_ did you do?" 

"I trusted someone, realized I'd been wrong, then trusted someone else to take that person down, and, well—" she shrugged. "These things can snowball."

I had so many questions and no way to phrase them. On the one hand, I didn't make a practice of trusting people, and especially not people who identified themselves as "traitors." On the other, I had no particular love for the current ruling body, and it sounded like she'd had some kind of noble motivation. I realized I didn't even know her name.

"I'm Arliss," I said. The ex-knight goggled at me. "What?"

"I've just told you I'm a traitor to the crown and your response is to _tell me your name_?"

"And yours is...?"

"You should be running far and fast," she said. "When they find me, they'll execute me, and I don't know what they'll do to anyone found in my company."

"You didn't seem so worried about that in the tavern," I said.

"I'd have left before my time was up," she said. "Twenty-four hours to leave the kingdom, as of this afternoon. I've no intention of bringing anyone down with me."

"I've no intention of being taken down," I said. "Survival is one of my specialties, and my plans happen to include leaving the kingdom imminently. You could come with me."

"Either you're an idiot, or you're planning something against me," she said. "I'll take my chances on my own."

"Oh, I don't trust you," I said. "I just don't feel terribly threatened by you."

She laughed again, to herself. "Zell," she said.

"What?"

"My name's Zell," she said.

"So you're coming with me?"

"What the hell, I'm dead anyway." She stood. "So, where are we going?"

"My place." I pushed myself up off the ground. "Well, I rent. It's tiny, but it's clean— well, it's not that clean. But it's got a door that locks."

 

 

 

"Gods, my head." The heels of her hands were pressed against her forehead and her eyes were squeezed shut against the morning light. "I think I'm dying."

"You will be if we don't get out of here." I pulled a fresh tunic and leggings on. "When exactly does the bounty take effect?"

"One." I looked out the window. We still had a few hours left, but Zell wouldn't be moving at top speed.

"All right, let's go."

She winced. "Could you be a little quieter?"

"Are you going to be able to travel? We're on foot the whole way, and I cannot carry you."

"I've never drunk that much before." She tried pushing off of the bed (she'd insisted on sleeping on the floor, which in my tiny flat, was scarce), but without success. "I'm sorry. You tried to help me."

"That's it?" I hissed. "You're giving up? _Here?_ "

"Unless your plan allows for crawling to the border, yes. Just get me to the stairs, I'll make it down myself."

"And then what?"

"Then I'll wait. There's no need for you to be connected to this."

"Like hell." I looked out the window for something, anything, I could use. "I'll get you some water. We're both getting out of here."

Pumping water in the yard gave me time to think. I could get her some breakfast, something hot— she could pay me back later— it might abate the hangover, then just a hood to block out some of the daylight, and we might have a chance. Might. Why was I doing this? I'd just met her. It couldn't just be pity. I felt almost... _responsible_ for her. I'd planned to be in Muratan for the job by tomorrow; if I left her here like she'd asked me to, I'd make it with time to spare. I thought of her shoulders shaking as she cried on the ground outside the Mule. I thought of the flatness of her tone when she told me about her death sentence. I thought of her knocking Martus's legs out from under him and caught myself smiling. _Damn it_. I sighed and carried the now full pitcher back up to my room.

She was still on the floor, slumped over the bed from her failed attempt at pulling herself together. I found a clean rag in the trunk that held my clothes and dipped it in the pitcher.

"Tilt your head back." She obeyed, eyes still closed. With the tightness of the room, my only option was to kneel on the bed and support her head with my left arm. She gasped when the cold water touched her forehead. "You're too trusting, you know that? I could have come back with a knife."

"I could hear the water sloshing in the pitcher, sounded like you'd need two hands to carry it," she said. "Anyway, the way my head feels, I wish someone would just put me out of my misery." I dabbed at the sweat on her forehead, brushed the rag down the sides of her face, started on her neck. I didn't think anything of it until she gasped. Her eyes flew open, very close to my face, and I realized I couldn't remember the last time I'd touched someone's neck. Not the kind of thing I thought about. Not terribly important. But suddenly, it seemed very important. My mouth dried out and I wasn't sure what to do, what to say. I swallowed.

"Your breath is terrible," I said. _I am not good at this._

Zell exhaled, as if she'd been holding her breath for several seconds. _Huh._

"What shocking news," she said, turning away from me. I wanted to go back, say literally anything else to her in that moment. "Thanks for the water, I'll take it from here." I handed over the rag and pitcher and swung my legs over the other side of the bed.

"So, what's your story?" she said. "Why are you skipping town?

"No story," I said. "Just go where the work is."

"Sellsword?" she said.

"How do you know?" I said. Not a secret, but I was curious.

"Your friend back at the tavern was bragging about his skill with a sword— or maybe, " _sword_ "? I tried not to think about it too much— and being sought after as a mercenary. You talked to him like he was a competitor, or maybe a coworker you can't stand." I laughed. "And you're headed to Muratan, nearest kingdom that's actively at war."

"I'm impressed," I said. Not a natural state for me.

"Occasionally, I can read people," she said. I remembered.

"What happened?" I said. "With the royal family."

She looked away. "I told you."

"You told me next to nothing," I protested. "If we're going to be traveling together, I should know what I'm getting into."

"I didn't _ask_ to travel with you!" she said, and then winced at the sound of her own voice. She continued more quietly. "In point of fact, I asked you to leave me to my fate and save yourself. I haven't changed my mind about that."

"Look, I won't make you come with me," I said, suitably chastened. "I don't see how I could, even if I wanted to. But I don't want to leave you here to die."

"Why not?"

"Aside from 'that's horrible,' you mean?"

"Yes," she said. "Apart from guilt. Horrible things happen every day to people you don't know. This is just one more of them. Why on earth would you want to help me?"

"What makes you think I don't do this all the time?"

"Do you?"

"No."

"The question stands."

 _Well, shit._ "I don't know," I said. She raised an eyebrow. "I don't! I don't have a good answer for you."

"Then I'm not going."

"That's it, then?"

"If you have no reason to help me, you have no reason not to drop me if it becomes convenient." She stared me down. Was she giving me another chance to come up with something, or just driving her point home? 

"At the tavern, when you knocked Martus down," I said, only vaguely aware of how I was wording this, "that's why." _That was a stupid thing to say_ , I thought while another part of my brain kept supplying reasons: _because I feel sorry for you, because I like your eyes, because I like your hair, because I don't think you should be alone, because I talked to you and you don't say much but I think you're interesting, because..._

"What happened with... everything," she said. I snapped back to reality. "Maybe I'll tell you, one day."

I nodded. "Fair enough," I said, but I couldn't deny that somehow, this felt like a victory.


End file.
